Idiom
take one's medicine
Meaning
To endure an unpleasant obligation, especially a punishment.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“You made a mistake, so you must take your medicine.”
“I broke the window, so now I have to take my medicine.”
“The team lost the game fairly, so they had to take their medicine and congratulate the winners.”
“The politician knew the voters were angry about the new tax, so he went on television to take his medicine and answer their tough questions.”
“After skipping class all week, the student had to take her medicine when the teacher assigned her a Saturday detention.”
“After the audit revealed significant financial mismanagement, the executive had to take his medicine and accept the board's decision to terminate his contract.”
Examples
simple
“You made a mistake, so you must take your medicine.”
“I broke the window, so now I have to take my medicine.”
contextual
“The team lost the game fairly, so they had to take their medicine and congratulate the winners.”
“The politician knew the voters were angry about the new tax, so he went on television to take his medicine and answer their tough questions.”
“After skipping class all week, the student had to take her medicine when the teacher assigned her a Saturday detention.”
complex
“After the audit revealed significant financial mismanagement, the executive had to take his medicine and accept the board's decision to terminate his contract.”
Origin
Derived from the observation that curative substances are frequently disagreeable to the palate. The idiom relies upon the specific tension between the long-term benefit of a treatment and the immediate unpleasantness of its consumption. As the efficacy of a remedy was historically associated with the bitterness of its flavour, the act of ingestion became a metaphor for the stoic acceptance of a necessary but distasteful consequence.
Key words
Related idioms
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